Situation: Bartholomew’s Luxury Furniture produces handcrafted home goods with lifetime warranties. Bartholomew invests heavily in educating and training his team to help them avoid mistakes that could lead to defective products. According to The Cost of Poor Quality, what category does this cost belong to?Internal failureExternal failureAppraisal
- Internal failure
- External failure
- Appraisal
- Prevention
Explanation: The correct answer is Prevention. Prevention costs encompass the investments made to proactively eliminate defects from processes to prevent failures from occurring. In the scenario described, Bartholomew’s Luxury Furniture invests heavily in educating and training its team to help them avoid mistakes that could lead to defective products. By providing comprehensive training and education to its employees, Bartholomew’s aims to instill a culture of quality and excellence, thereby reducing the likelihood of errors or defects in its handcrafted home goods. These preventive measures contribute to improving the overall quality of the products and minimizing the occurrence of defects, ultimately enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty. Prevention costs are incurred upfront to prevent quality issues from arising, contrasting with internal failure costs, which arise from defects identified within the organization’s processes or products before they are delivered to the customer, and external failure costs, which occur when defects are identified after the product has reached the customer, resulting in expenses such as warranty claims and customer complaints. Appraisal costs involve investments made to assess and evaluate the quality of products or services to ensure they meet specified requirements. Therefore, the investments made by Bartholomew’s Luxury Furniture in educating and training its team to prevent defects in its handcrafted home goods fall under the category of prevention costs according to The Cost of Poor Quality.